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“Least my shit says something.”
“It says something alright. Criminal record,” I’d snapped, and he’d only smiled.
“Fine by me. All you girls like the bad ones anyway. Good technique by the way,” he’d said with a wink. “You’ll be sure to get an A.”
Good technique.No artist wants to be told they have good technique. They want people to look at their work andfeelsomething. They want people to stare at it and admire it and have thought provoking, in-depth conversations about the meaning behind the piece. They want people to fall on their damn knees because it’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen.
They want Sistine Chapel level shit.
Not good technique.Nevergood technique.
By the end of class, I was so worked up that I’d thrown my near-finished assignment into the trash bin on the way out. I didn’t manage to shake the anger all day—not in English class, not over lunch, and not when I got home.Typical, boring.His words stuck with me even when I tried to sleep that night, and so I’d pushed out of bed, grabbed an empty canvas, and re-painted those hands. This time though, rather than my father’s dirt lined, mechanic’s hands, I’d painted mine. A big middle finger. I’d used blacks and purples and those harsh lines that James seemed to like so much, and when I was done I threw in sprays of pinks and yellows and greens, to show him that I too could make use of a paint cannister.You’re not special,I’d said to him, and I wanted to prove that. I all but wrote ‘fuck you James’ on the canvas, and I admit at the time I’d been tempted to do just that.
I didn’t get an A, but James had smiled when he’d seen it. A real smile, not the broody, sarcastic one that he always had planted on his face.
“Not so typical I guess,Katie,”he’d said.
“Still not special,asshole,” I’d said back.
That night I’d found my unfinished painting on my porch. My father’s hands with the black under his nails and the permanent darkened lines of his palms from twenty years of oil stains and motor repairs. James had finished it. Not just finished it, he’d brought it to life—it was my father, not just a memory on canvas, but it washim. I could almost smell that metallic scent he carried with him—of oil and dirt and gasoline that stuck to his clothes even when he wasn’t working. I could almost feel the roughness of his hands, the callouses on his palms, hear my mother’s playful scoff when she’d tell him his skin was too scratchy.
Typical and Not Special,he’d named it, and I still have it hanging in my office.
His mural does the same thing, it brings something to life. “I guess you won’t be getting your deposit back,” I tease.
He snorts. “That ship sailed the day I moved in. Couldn’t help myself. All that empty space.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s unfinished.” His voice comes out bitter as he tilts his head up, studying the incomplete mural. “What are you working on right now?”
I shrug. “Nothing, really. A couple restorations.”
“Nothing? Since when does Kate Mitchell have nothing to say?”
I raise an eyebrow. “I’ve got plenty to say, but none of it seems canvas worthy. Not lately anyway.”
“If it’s inspiration you need, here I am babe,” he says with a grin. His hands circle around my waist, making my breath catch. “Where do you want me to fuck you Katie?” A blush creeps up my cheeks, and he chuckles. “I meant where in my apartment,” he corrects. “But I like where your mind’s going. We’ll come back to that.”
“I think I remember you talking about some sort of apology.”
His grin broadens. “Take off your panties.”
My mouth goes dry. Even after almost ten years of him, of us, he still has this effect on me, this pull. I reach up my skirt and loop my thumbs around the thin, black material of my underwear before tugging them off and tossing them to the floor. Gone is his smile, gone is his playfulness. In its place—hunger, desire, need, desperation.
I step back but he matches each one of my strides until I’m bumping into the hard edge of the kitchen table, until I have nowhere else to go. His body presses against mine, his hands travelling up my thighs and under my skirt. He lifts me up by my bare ass and sets me down hard on the table.
“Lift up your skirt,” he commands, and I do, eyes on him, because I’ve always loved that look he gets when he’s hungry for me like this. It’s the same look he gets when he’s painting—fervent, obsessive.
“Spread your legs for me Katie. Let me see you.” I part my knees, but he shakes his head, because it’s seemingly not enough. He needs more of me. More of his Katie, more of the girl he calls when he’s desperate for feeling, for inspiration.
James pushes my back to the table and spreads my legs wider, his eyes igniting when he looks down. “Fuck, Kate. Already so goddamn wet for me,” he says as he slides a finger between my legs.
My whole body jolts when he grazes my clit. He drops his head down and his mouth is quickly on me, his fingers gripping my backside. And then he’s ravaging me—with his tongue and his lips and his new beard that scratches and tickles my skin.
I gasp, and he clamps his fingers down harder, dragging his tongue across every part of me, flicking it back and forth over all my sensitive parts as he buries his face further between my thighs.
“Fuck you taste good. I’ve missed this.” He hooks my leg over his shoulder and pulls my hips up to his face, pressing his mouth down harder. It’s like he can’t get enough of me—of my taste, of my smell. Like he’s starving for me, like he’sbeenstarved and I’m what’s finally sated him.
